Car-Pooling

Los Angeles, like any big city, has rush hour traffic jams. Nobody likes it, but no one does anything to help the situation. It’s easy to look at the scale of the problem and the number of cars, and figure that one individual’s action doesn’t make a difference. But there are a couple of things anyone can do to alleviate the traffic problem--car-pooling and general awareness while driving.

Car-pooling is an inconvenience, but if everyone did it once a week, it would cut traffic by 20%. This would be like adding a lane to the freeways.

If car-pooling is not practical, using a little common sense while driving is a contribution anyone can make. Last-second, multi-lane changes slow traffic for everyone behind you. At major entrance/exit streets, traffic halts for seemingly no reason as drivers change lanes, causing the cars behind them to slow to an eventual stop. It doesn’t take much sense to think ahead to put yourself in the best lane to allow traffic to end and exit smoothly.

KENNETH ANDERSON

Los Angeles